Week 4.
It could also be referred to as:
-the week that Elise left.
-the week that Dave arrived.
-the week that we said goodbye to Ina.
-the week that I spent two nights in Kuta.
-the week that I used all of my remaining energy and then became sick.
-the week that I said goodbye to my new home.
So, Sunday night...Elise is packed and we jump into a car to head for Kuta. Ina and Blue also follow/take off ahead on the bike. The plan is, spend a last couple of hours with Elise in Kuta, get a cheap place to 'sleep' (aka, leave our stuff while we party) and then...well... party. And that's exactly what happened! It was sad saying goodbye to Elise though, because we had had such a great week and a bit together in Bali. She is one of my closest friends in the world, and I can literally say that now. Being overseas with her was just like...being overseas with my own right leg. Ha. I mean this as a compliment. Having her in my villa and hanging out with her was just easy and felt right. We just have so many new, fantastic memories to share together now. And some pretty awesome photos too...
So I farewelled Elise and took on the role of... third wheel. ;) Not really, Ina and Blue are totally awesome to hang out with. We went to Sky Garden, which is basically the biggest nightclub in Kuta. Sunday nights are 'Ladies Night', so for two hours, drinks were free for Ina and I. Awesome. We also did all you can eat Sushi, which I have to add was the best sushi I've had in a while. After the free drinks were finished, we got a call from Sadam who had finished work early (well... I think it was 2am) and was driving down to join us. Yay... someone to talk to while Ina and Blue were making out. ;) We moved to the bar just out the front of Bounty, and i think another 3 or 4 drinks were consumed. There must have been a few because I was convinced I was the next best thing to Michael Jackson on the dancefloor. And it was music you'd never, ever, EVER catch me dancing to in Adelaide. EVER. But meh, when in Bali right?
By the time Sadam came, we had moved to Apache Bar, which was just a bit further up Jl. Legian. There was a live band playing the usual hits... RHCP, Bob Marley etc etc... The guys were keen to leave, basically because we get to hear this (and to a much better standard mind you) every night at CP. So we move on, back to Bounty. But to the real deal. The pirate ship.
If you've been to Bali before, and you've experienced Kuta to it's fullest, you will not need to be told about the greatness that is Bounty. Yup... I did say pirate ship. It's a two storey nightclub that has firmly been entertaining tourists for many a years now, and it's inside a giant pirate ship. Can I say pirate ship again. It's pretty freaking cool. Inside the main stage, there are podiums and cages for dancing, and lights everywhere. The music is very, FreshFM, but it works. About 85% of the crowd are Bintang Singlet-clad (otherwise referred to as Binglets or, to the extreme, Binaforms) Australians. They are mostly well behaved, besides the guy who decided to pick a fight with a local guy jsut behind me. Lucky Sadam saw it go down and pulled me out the way in time. Might have left Bounty with yet another concussion... but that was a lifetime ago. We won't explain it here. ;)
So...Bounty was a great success as expected. Got pretty hungry around 5am ish and hit up my old favourite... Maccas on Kuta Beach. Wandered back to our shabby little room for a couple of hours of rest, and then got up, had breakfast and made my way to the airport. Dave was officially arriving in Bali this morning, and I was pretty damn excited.
I think I have remembered a lot from this week, and expecting that I could do it all in one post was pretty ambitious. Perhaps I will leave it at this point and do another post of the next few days... Give myself something to look forward to anyway. And I have a day off work tomorrow to live in the past and remember the fun time in Bali... yeh, that sounds like a plan Kate.
All for now then. :)
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Day... Something- Week 3 Recounted Very Badly.
So... I think I was about 8 days behind in my bloggings at one stage, and I had every intention on catching up on those days when disaster struck.
Note to self: Do not allow the boyfriend to drink coke while using your laptop. A combination of said drink and keyboard never ends well.
Because of this, I lost use of the following keys: 'A', 'S', '1', '2', 'P', 'delete', 'shift', 'command'... just to name a few.
Mass frustration. Expecially when my email address starts with 'SA'... It rendered any possibility of catching up on blogs or just writing new ones completely impossible. The only option for me was to hang out in internet cafes and type away, but I had so many things to do that the blog just wasn't a priority any more. If I was going to hang out in an internet cafe for a while, then I'd be researching for Green School and Starfish, and printing off worksheets, not worrying about making a pretty little blog about my day.
But, well... now I'm home so I guess one way of drowning my sorrows is to come back here and try to do a brief recount of what I've missed. I know Dave has somewhat taken over- he utilised his time in internet cafes waiting for me to finish working but retelling his day. Mine are slightly different though, and I have a few days previous to his arrival to share as well... lets see how I go for remembering it all though. I mean, we are talking about...2 and a half weeks ago. In Bali time, that's at least 2 months.
Week 3
I'm not entirely sure where I left things off, but I will start at the beginning of week 3. On the Sunday (which I believe was the 13th), we had our last day out in Ubud with the twins. We wandered around the main street, through the markets, along Monkey Forest rd. It was a really nice day that day if I remember it correctly, and Jess and I decided to be super girly and get our nails done. So we walked down this little side street to a little spa/salon and enjoyed being pampered for the next 55 minutes. I remembered loving this more than usual because the night before, having been the girls last night in Bali, was a memorably big night including a lovely dinner at Nomad on Jalan Raya, followed by a number of cocktails and bintangs at CP...followed then by an impromptu pool party at my villa. I think... It's a combination of time/alcohol/sleep deprivation that hinders my memory of this. But it was a good night.
Before I knew it, the driver was on our front doorstep helping Jess and Ali with their bags and they were driving off into the distance. It was sad, I had had so much fun with my first visitors to Bali. But I also had no idea the rollercoaster ride I was in for with Elise either... :)
The next day was Valentines Day. Bllleeeerrrggghh! Ha. I don't really buy into the whole Valentines day thing, and sometimes here at home I will get sucked into it, but it was good being overseas for it this year. Sure, I missed Dave, but no more than any other day. There was no extra hype or longing to be showered in gifts. Just another beautiful day in Ubud you know. I don't completely remember this day, or the night before. I can only imagine that we went out for dinner or something, and then went to CP? Most probably. I do know that on the day of the 14th, I spent about 8 hours at Starfish. Ok... maybe not at Starfish, but doing work.. I think some of those hours were spent at an internet cafe doing some printing. Regardless, I do remember being there until quite late, because I totally missed the whole fundraising event that CP has thrown for Deaf and Blind children. Every year for 3 years they have held this big concert starting in the afternoon, called "Invitation to Love", and it's always on Valentines day. The kids dance and sing, and there are raffles and all sorts of those kinds of things. I would have loved to have seen it, but the day had already gotten away from me. And you know what... I was already doing my thing for my kids, so in a way I didn't feel too bad. We made our way to CP that night anyway.
This is where things get a bit blurry. There are no more... 'events' like Valentines Day to indicate or act as a reference point. What I can tell you is my days pretty much looked like this:
Wake Up anywhere between 9.30am and noon.
Go to Starfish around 12.30-1pm.
Stay at Starfish, or complete Starfish related work somewhere for the next 6-8 hours.
Go back to Villa somewhere between 6pm-8pm.
Get dressed up, go out for dinner and be at CP anywhere between 11pm-1am.
Leave CP at about 5am.
Start all over again.
This wasn't just my schedule for Week 3 either. It kinda stayed like this for the whole trip. Seems crazy to look at it, written down like this but when I was there, doing it, it just felt right. I didn't feel gross in the mornings- I felt fresh and excited for a new day and to go to Starfish. I rarely felt hungover or seedy, and I only occassionally needed to take a nanna nap on the couch in the afternoons- those days were usually because I'd been walking around rather then riding. Sure, there is no way I would be able to keep that lifestyle going indefinitely, but my body kept up with me just fine. Probably because it knew only a couple of weeks would need to pass and it would all be over. Still.... I have no doubt in my mind that I made the most of my time while I was there.
So other bits and peices of my week are blurred together, but other parts do stand out. I remember having this one day off work- or I had at least finished what I needed to finish for the day, and Elise and I were so excited to get some shopping done. We planned to walk to Ubud and buy up some souviners for Elise and I was jsut excited to go shopping. We get out to Jl Pengosekan, and cross the road to avoid what has affectionately been named "the Devil Dog". I don't know if I've mentioned the Devil Dog before now. It's this black dog that sleeps all day in front of a Potong Rambut (Hairdresser), and damn it I would have put down all my money that he would bark and growl and chase me (or any other white person) if they came within 15 meters of the asshole. On my first or second day, he actually bit my bag! Not really something to take lightly, since the dogs here are likely to be rabie infected. So, we had taken to walking on the other side of the road when we approached the Potong Rambut- and we slow down/speed up depending on the traffic, ie if there was a lot of traffic coming, we'd walk quickly because it would usually stop the dog from being tempted to run across the road to attack us. Anyway, he did try to do this a few times... but Dagmara showed me a tip for dealing with these kinds of dogs. Apparently the dogs are quite used to having stones thrown at them by locals, and if you bend down and pretend to grab a rock, then pull your arm back like you're going t throw something, the dog backs right off. And wow- it worked everytime. Stupid dogs. Actually... i take back the plural, some of the dogs were super cute. Please refer to the puppies at Sanur, and also Jake the Bali Spirit dog who sleeps regularly (and parties regularly) at CP.
Anyway, back to my story. Elise and I are walking, we avoid the Devil Dog, and we walk past this Turkish restaurant called Istanbul. It looks nice, and we agree we have a half an hour or so to spare and a juice would be really nice. We sit down, decide to order some appetisers, some water, you know... just to get ready for our afternoon of shopping and walking.
Well...that all went out the window pretty quickly. The food was amazing, and we sat with the owner for a good hour and a half just talking about Turkey and his home town, and food and tea and shisha. It was a pretty nice little afternoon. The owner brought out some traditional Turkish tea for us to try and it was amazing. We decided right there and then that we would come back for a whole meal and shisha too.
This was kind of a common thing for me in Ubud. I'd maybe have some plans in my head for the day, then I'd get distracted, or something completely unexpected would get in the way. Usually this was the monsoonal rain which would stop everyone from doing anything. I have a giggle to myself at times because, one thing Australian literature and film and just general opinion has over time taught us, is that we are at the full mercy of the Australian elements- we should fear the Australian environment and climate. But heck, I have never been more stranded by weather than I was in Ubud. And it was spectacular.
Note to self: Do not allow the boyfriend to drink coke while using your laptop. A combination of said drink and keyboard never ends well.
Because of this, I lost use of the following keys: 'A', 'S', '1', '2', 'P', 'delete', 'shift', 'command'... just to name a few.
Mass frustration. Expecially when my email address starts with 'SA'... It rendered any possibility of catching up on blogs or just writing new ones completely impossible. The only option for me was to hang out in internet cafes and type away, but I had so many things to do that the blog just wasn't a priority any more. If I was going to hang out in an internet cafe for a while, then I'd be researching for Green School and Starfish, and printing off worksheets, not worrying about making a pretty little blog about my day.
But, well... now I'm home so I guess one way of drowning my sorrows is to come back here and try to do a brief recount of what I've missed. I know Dave has somewhat taken over- he utilised his time in internet cafes waiting for me to finish working but retelling his day. Mine are slightly different though, and I have a few days previous to his arrival to share as well... lets see how I go for remembering it all though. I mean, we are talking about...2 and a half weeks ago. In Bali time, that's at least 2 months.
Week 3
I'm not entirely sure where I left things off, but I will start at the beginning of week 3. On the Sunday (which I believe was the 13th), we had our last day out in Ubud with the twins. We wandered around the main street, through the markets, along Monkey Forest rd. It was a really nice day that day if I remember it correctly, and Jess and I decided to be super girly and get our nails done. So we walked down this little side street to a little spa/salon and enjoyed being pampered for the next 55 minutes. I remembered loving this more than usual because the night before, having been the girls last night in Bali, was a memorably big night including a lovely dinner at Nomad on Jalan Raya, followed by a number of cocktails and bintangs at CP...followed then by an impromptu pool party at my villa. I think... It's a combination of time/alcohol/sleep deprivation that hinders my memory of this. But it was a good night.
Before I knew it, the driver was on our front doorstep helping Jess and Ali with their bags and they were driving off into the distance. It was sad, I had had so much fun with my first visitors to Bali. But I also had no idea the rollercoaster ride I was in for with Elise either... :)
The next day was Valentines Day. Bllleeeerrrggghh! Ha. I don't really buy into the whole Valentines day thing, and sometimes here at home I will get sucked into it, but it was good being overseas for it this year. Sure, I missed Dave, but no more than any other day. There was no extra hype or longing to be showered in gifts. Just another beautiful day in Ubud you know. I don't completely remember this day, or the night before. I can only imagine that we went out for dinner or something, and then went to CP? Most probably. I do know that on the day of the 14th, I spent about 8 hours at Starfish. Ok... maybe not at Starfish, but doing work.. I think some of those hours were spent at an internet cafe doing some printing. Regardless, I do remember being there until quite late, because I totally missed the whole fundraising event that CP has thrown for Deaf and Blind children. Every year for 3 years they have held this big concert starting in the afternoon, called "Invitation to Love", and it's always on Valentines day. The kids dance and sing, and there are raffles and all sorts of those kinds of things. I would have loved to have seen it, but the day had already gotten away from me. And you know what... I was already doing my thing for my kids, so in a way I didn't feel too bad. We made our way to CP that night anyway.
This is where things get a bit blurry. There are no more... 'events' like Valentines Day to indicate or act as a reference point. What I can tell you is my days pretty much looked like this:
Wake Up anywhere between 9.30am and noon.
Go to Starfish around 12.30-1pm.
Stay at Starfish, or complete Starfish related work somewhere for the next 6-8 hours.
Go back to Villa somewhere between 6pm-8pm.
Get dressed up, go out for dinner and be at CP anywhere between 11pm-1am.
Leave CP at about 5am.
Start all over again.
This wasn't just my schedule for Week 3 either. It kinda stayed like this for the whole trip. Seems crazy to look at it, written down like this but when I was there, doing it, it just felt right. I didn't feel gross in the mornings- I felt fresh and excited for a new day and to go to Starfish. I rarely felt hungover or seedy, and I only occassionally needed to take a nanna nap on the couch in the afternoons- those days were usually because I'd been walking around rather then riding. Sure, there is no way I would be able to keep that lifestyle going indefinitely, but my body kept up with me just fine. Probably because it knew only a couple of weeks would need to pass and it would all be over. Still.... I have no doubt in my mind that I made the most of my time while I was there.
So other bits and peices of my week are blurred together, but other parts do stand out. I remember having this one day off work- or I had at least finished what I needed to finish for the day, and Elise and I were so excited to get some shopping done. We planned to walk to Ubud and buy up some souviners for Elise and I was jsut excited to go shopping. We get out to Jl Pengosekan, and cross the road to avoid what has affectionately been named "the Devil Dog". I don't know if I've mentioned the Devil Dog before now. It's this black dog that sleeps all day in front of a Potong Rambut (Hairdresser), and damn it I would have put down all my money that he would bark and growl and chase me (or any other white person) if they came within 15 meters of the asshole. On my first or second day, he actually bit my bag! Not really something to take lightly, since the dogs here are likely to be rabie infected. So, we had taken to walking on the other side of the road when we approached the Potong Rambut- and we slow down/speed up depending on the traffic, ie if there was a lot of traffic coming, we'd walk quickly because it would usually stop the dog from being tempted to run across the road to attack us. Anyway, he did try to do this a few times... but Dagmara showed me a tip for dealing with these kinds of dogs. Apparently the dogs are quite used to having stones thrown at them by locals, and if you bend down and pretend to grab a rock, then pull your arm back like you're going t throw something, the dog backs right off. And wow- it worked everytime. Stupid dogs. Actually... i take back the plural, some of the dogs were super cute. Please refer to the puppies at Sanur, and also Jake the Bali Spirit dog who sleeps regularly (and parties regularly) at CP.
Anyway, back to my story. Elise and I are walking, we avoid the Devil Dog, and we walk past this Turkish restaurant called Istanbul. It looks nice, and we agree we have a half an hour or so to spare and a juice would be really nice. We sit down, decide to order some appetisers, some water, you know... just to get ready for our afternoon of shopping and walking.
Well...that all went out the window pretty quickly. The food was amazing, and we sat with the owner for a good hour and a half just talking about Turkey and his home town, and food and tea and shisha. It was a pretty nice little afternoon. The owner brought out some traditional Turkish tea for us to try and it was amazing. We decided right there and then that we would come back for a whole meal and shisha too.
This was kind of a common thing for me in Ubud. I'd maybe have some plans in my head for the day, then I'd get distracted, or something completely unexpected would get in the way. Usually this was the monsoonal rain which would stop everyone from doing anything. I have a giggle to myself at times because, one thing Australian literature and film and just general opinion has over time taught us, is that we are at the full mercy of the Australian elements- we should fear the Australian environment and climate. But heck, I have never been more stranded by weather than I was in Ubud. And it was spectacular.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)